1. Field of the Invention
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display.
2. Description of the Background
As one of widely used flat panel displays, a liquid crystal display (LCD) includes two display panels provided with field generating electrodes such as pixel electrodes and a common electrode, and a liquid crystal layer interposed therebetween. The LCD display can present images by applying voltages to the field-generating electrodes to generate an electric field in the liquid crystal (LC) layer that determines the orientation of LC molecules therein to adjust polarization of incident light.
A vertical alignment (VA) mode LCD, which aligns LC molecules such that their long axes are perpendicular to the panels in the absence of an electric field, is recognized because of its high contrast ratio and wide reference viewing angle.
In the vertical alignment (VA) mode liquid crystal display, to obtain the wide viewing angle, a plurality of domains in which the alignment directions of the liquid crystal molecules are different may be formed in one pixel.
Various methods have been proposed in which an approach discloses a minute slit or a cutout formed in the field generating electrodes or a protrusion that is formed on the field generating electrodes to form the plurality of domains in one pixel. In this approach, the plurality of domains may be formed in alignment with the liquid crystal molecules in vertical direction with respect to a fringe field generated between the edges of the cutout or the protrusion and the field generating electrodes facing the edges.
However, a typical liquid crystal display using the vertical alignment (VA) mode has poor side visibility compared with front visibility such that one pixel is divided into two subpixels and extra voltages are required to supply the subpixels to solve the poor side visibility.